Dubia and Gout

Or perhaps you are analyzing this to an extreme? Keeping healthy pets and taking proper care of an animal does involve some science but it is more of an artform of knowing your particular animal.

If your animal will only eat dubia...arugula...peppers...and strawberry as an example that is what you feed. If your critter will eat 30 different things then feed more variety. The point is there is no specific answer which is what you are looking for. My picky male is no less healthy than my new one which is a garbage disposal...it also comes down to what you want to do. If it makes you happy to feed 1 serving of everything the animal will eat daily do that. Most people have 1-2 feeders they alternative a couple of times a week and create a salad with a couple of veggies or fruits they have on hand.

To get back on track,

theyellowlabrador":2ehd1kqx said:

Thanks you for that and apologies for my inability to get my post under the right subject heading again!!
I am going to continue using the dubia as my supplier has confirmed that he feeds his colonies on calcium enriched cereal and fresh veggies and not a high protein diet. I may cut back a little and give more locusts too but as he loves the dubia and it is my way of getting calcium into him I am going to continue and I will also continue the battle with salad. The good news is i measured him last night and I think he is now around 13.5 " so he must be getting some goodness out of his food

Click to expand...

Even when fed a low protein diet, roaches still have high levels of Uric acid in their bodies. This is because roaches, unlike many other insects, do not expel their uric acid, they hold onto it for various biological reasons that are a bit more in depth than this needs to be. It stays in their body, for further use, and can be converted back into protein nitrogen when needed. But, they can't get rid of it like other insects can. When roaches are fed a high protein diet, they create even more uric acid. This can get to the point where the roach will actually die from it's built up uric acid levels.

A low protein diet for the roaches is the best middle ground, but I would be more cautious on what exactly your supplier considers low protein. Many people feed their roaches a dog/cat chow mixture. Most dog food is 18-25% protein. So with that train of thought, would you consider half of that to be low protein? Say 9-12%? Still, according to one biochemist who oddly enough is also a roach expert, he says the magic number he shoots for with roaches is 4% protein.

Remember though, roaches have higher levels of uric acid than other insects, simply because of their biology. Feeding them a lower protein diet helps mitigate the risks of gout, but it's still there.

And like I said earlier, they still are a good food source, but they shouldn't be relied on as the sole food source IMO.

MC, and Spectrum, your discussion is interesting; it would be worthwhile to start your own thread to discuss it.

-Brandon

claudiusx":rh8vysl0 said:

MC, and Spectrum, your discussion is interesting; it would be worthwhile to start your own thread to discuss it.

Click to expand...

OK. As vagaries in care & feeding guidelines can/usually (IME/O) crossover into multiple topics (feeders, feeding, enclosures, & health (just to name a few--there may be more), where would be the most appropriate place to post it? I can envision it likely to drift naturally, and I could see that may actually be beneficial to the discussion. YMMV

Any of those areas would be fine. Feeding might be the best but it's not a big deal. Topics can morph and evolve into different subjects. All we ask is that there isnt a deviance from the original topic without the ops consent or doing. So it would be perfectly fine for a thread you started to morph into multiple ideas as long as it was at your doing or ok with you
Hope that makes sense.

-Brandon